


Now You're Halfway Out The Door

by TheseLinesofLightning



Category: Strictly Come Dancing RPF
Genre: F/M, all fluff, my ranvanni heart just wants to be happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:00:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29376750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheseLinesofLightning/pseuds/TheseLinesofLightning
Summary: Ranvir finally reads her press and finds the whole thing very funny.
Relationships: Giovanni Pernice/Ranvir Singh
Comments: 12
Kudos: 16





	Now You're Halfway Out The Door

‘I’m so sorry baby am not going to have time to video chat x’

Ranvir frowned at the message from Giovanni on her home screen. Since Strictly had ended they had always found time for a phone call before the end of the day, no matter how busy they were, so for Giovanni to blow her off like that? Well, it stung a little.

She tried to shrug it off and move on, he had after all told her all about the new career moves he was trying to make and assumed he would call her tomorrow with some more exciting news. The boy was constantly on the go, he didn’t know the meaning of the words ‘down time’ and she shook her head fondly as she typed back a message.

‘Don’t work yourself too hard, call tomorrow? X’

Ranvir made her way upstairs into her bedroom. She shrugged on her pyjamas and headed to the ensuite to wash her face and clean her teeth.

‘Thank you darling, goodnight x’

Not bothering to reply since she still felt a little salty about their lack of video call, Ranvir finished up her evening routine and slid into bed with a sigh. She set her alarm for quarter to three and turned off her bedside lamp hoping that sleep would come sooner rather than later.

-

The next morning, Ranvir’s driver picked her up from her house, a stack of newspapers already in the back seat for her to peruse on the way to the studios.

“Morning Paul,” she smiled through the glass screen and hoped he’d be able to tell through her mask.

“Hi Ranvir, ready for the day I see,” he replied, switching the radio over to BBC Radio 2 as he stared pointedly at her travel mug.

“Christmas present,” she grinned guiltily, “gotta make the most out of it!”

Paul chuckled and turned the volume up a little as she reached for the first newspaper on the seat. She went straight for the puzzle section, finding a morning crossword usually helped to wake her brain up for the day. As she was flicking, however, she paused as a familiar name caught her eye.

Ranvir backtracked a little and opened the page.

‘ _Strictly star Giovanni Pernice admits there’s ‘absolutely no way’ he’ll date Ranvir Singh’_

The headline caught her by surprise and she smirked a little as she read. The first thing she thought was that he interviewed very well, all those years of BBC media training had certainly paid off. The second thing she thought was how funny the entire article was. There wasn’t anything he was promoting listed and in all honesty it read very much like a reporter dying to get a scoop. She bit back a laugh as she read the headline again.

Deciding she’d wasted enough time on that, Ranvir headed back to her crossword. Her mind wandered as she read the clues, thoughtfully tapping a pen to her chin.

“I wonder if that’s why he didn’t want to chat yesterday,” she mused quietly.

“Everything okay love?” Paul asked from the front seat, obviously having heard her talking to herself.

“Yeah, sorry,” she said a bit louder, “just thinking out loud,”

“You need me to turn the volume down?”

“No, it’s perfect,” she paused, her eyes lighting up as she wrote the word ‘Ed Sheeran’ in the crossword, 5 across, “thank you,”

Paul nodded in acknowledgement as Ranvir pulled her phone from her pocket. She debated for a moment before deciding that if he was really avoiding her because of this article then she was certainly going to get some fun out of it. She snapped a picture of the headline and sent it across to him with as many question marks as she could fit into a text. And, if he wasn’t avoiding her because of this, at least she could tease him for a bit before getting the real reason out of him.

-

Ranvir headed for her dressing room several hours later, tying her hair back in a low ponytail as she went, determined to get through some emails before her driver arrived to take her home. She pulled her phone from her pocket to check the time and almost laughed out loud at her notifications list.

She pushed open her dressing room door before closing it behind her and sinking into the sofa as she flicked through the barrage of texts from her favourite Italian.

‘Please call me when you can x’

‘I can explain x’

‘Are you done with work or are you ignoring me? X’

‘Please x’

Ranvir laughed to herself before deciding to put the poor man out of his misery and FaceTime him. She coerced her expression into one of neutrality and hit the call button. He answered within seconds.

“Ranvir,” he said immediately, his eyes softening as the call connected, “I’m so sorry,”

She bit her bottom lip and gave him her best look of upset. His shoulders slumped and he looked like he might cry.

“Can I explain?”

She nodded, biting her lip a little harder to hold back her laughter. Giovanni looked genuinely distraught and she wondered briefly if maybe she’d taken it a step too far. But the five ‘no’s’ had hurt so she figured he could suffer a little longer.

“So I did the interview, like we agreed and then it went up online very quickly,” he shifted nervously in his seat, “I thought I’d done okay and then Kai read it over my shoulder and said it was hurtful,”

“Hurtful?” Ranvir couldn’t help but ask curiously.

“I know,” he whined mistaking her curiosity for agreement, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t think, I was just denying it like we agreed,”

“Right,” she nodded.

“But I think I went a bit far,” he said sadly, “can you forgive me?”

Giovanni gave her his best puppy dog eyes and Ranvir could no longer hold back her laugh. The sound escaped her, turning into a wheeze midway through as Giovanni stared back at in confusion.

“Oh Giovanni,” she managed to say between giggles, “I’m not mad at you,”

“You’re not?” He asked in surprise.

“I mean, sure it was a bit overkill,” she grinned at him, “but it was what we agreed,”

“But Kai said it make you look bad!” The Italian exclaimed, “I don’t want you to look bad!”

Ranvir laughed again, a huge grin on her face at his concern.

“All publicity is good publicity,” she shrugged, “we know the truth so I’m not offended,”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she giggled, “we wanted to live our lives away from the public eye and if anything that article has done exactly that,” she said, “we are free to not be talked about anymore, well, in the media at least,”

Giovanni let out a huge sigh of relief, flopping back against the cushions on his sofa, one hand coming up to cover his eyes. Ranvir laughed at him gently as he took a deep breath.

“So we’re okay?” He confirmed, sitting back up to look at her through the screen.

“We’re okay,” she nodded, reaching for her handbag on the coffee table, “for future reference though, if you’re worried about stuff like that please talk to me, don’t shut me out because you’re afraid of my response,”

“Got it,” he nodded emphatically, the seriousness evident on his features, “I am sorry,”

“I know,” she softened, giving him an encouraging smile through the phone, “to be honest it made me laugh when I read it,”

“It did?” Giovanni scrunched up his nose.

“Yeah, the five ‘no’s’ and the ‘absolutely no way’ are really very funny when you consider our actual relationship status,”

He grinned back at her dopily.

“I guess it is,”

“Anyway, that wasn’t the reason I called you,”

“It wasn’t?” Giovanni replied, cocking his head slightly.

Ranvir pulled a colour chart out of her bag and held it up to the camera.

“What colour do you think we should paint our bedroom?”

**Author's Note:**

> I fully appreciate this is probably not what happened however my little heart can dream can't it? I'm currently planning a kind of backwards approach to this friends to lovers style story so keep an eye out for that one :)  
> But I will say that Ranvir was not hurt by the article in both this fic and the fic where they are genuinely just friends as I do think IF they are just friends irl they'd have had that conversation and she'd have teased him about how unattractive she is to him and vice versa (in a very flirty way because these two...)  
> OH I forgot to add!!! I was editing this and had used the word 'perfect' as the answer to the crossword and then it occurred to me that not only had I said 'thinking out loud' the sentence before but then 'perfect' straight after so I had to change the crossword solution to Ed Sheeran. Too coincidental.


End file.
